Abstract
Helicopters are widely used in maritime search and rescue (SAR) missions. To improve the probability of success (POS) of SAR missions, search areas should be carefully planned. However, the search area is usually determined based on the survivors' probable locations at a given moment by existing planning methods, while the effects of the relative motion between the helicopter and the search objects are ignored, possibly leading to a significant decrease in the POS. To minimize the impact of search object motion, a time domain-based iterative planning (TIP) method is proposed in this article to obtain the optimal search areas. The survivors' probable locations and mean drift direction are updated iteratively, while the probability map is developed by taking survivors' mean drift direction as a reference. Then, the optimal search area is determined by an iterative search method starting from the cell with the highest probability of containment. To evaluate the effectiveness of a search plan, an agent-based simulation environment of a maritime search mission is constructed based on the AnyLogic simulation platform. Taking a capsizing case as an example, the simulation results show that the novel TIP method minimizes the impact of search object motion on the search effectiveness and obtains higher POS values than those obtained by other methods.
Highlights
Due to their high speed and hovering capabilities, helicopters are increasingly being used in maritime search and rescue (SAR) missions to save people’s lives [1]-[3]
In a further study of Agbissoh’s work, Bo Ai et al defined the probability of successful search and rescue (POSSAR) and proposed a SAR resource scheduling model based on the genetic simulated annealing algorithm with the goal of maximizing the POSSAR [19]
The resulting POS may be much lower than intended, and the actual search area may be quite different from the area planned due to the drifting of search objects, which has been demonstrated in the international aeronautical and maritime search and rescue (IAMSAR) manual [10]
Summary
Due to their high speed and hovering capabilities, helicopters are increasingly being used in maritime search and rescue (SAR) missions to save people’s lives [1]-[3]. The resulting POS may be much lower than intended, and the actual search area may be quite different from the area planned due to the drifting of search objects, which has been demonstrated in the international aeronautical and maritime search and rescue (IAMSAR) manual [10] To address this problem, a time domain-based iterative planning (TIP) method is proposed in this paper to determine the search areas by taking into consideration the relative motion between the SRU and search objects. The experimental results show that the search areas determined by the TIP method significantly improve the POS compared with those obtained by other methods, which demonstrates that the TIP method can effectively support the planning of search areas for helicopter maritime SAR missions.
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